Nemuro Hiroshi has been missing for six months. His wife, who has since become an alcoholic and no longer leaves her apartment, has hired a private detective.

A matchbox.
A phone number.
A newspaper and a raincoat.
A simple hand-drawn map of a train station.

The detective has few clues with which to start his investigation. The wife’s brother has been investigating since the disappearance, but refuses to offer the detective anything he’s discovered.

Kobo Abe’s The Ruined Map (燃え尽きた地図) starts as a fairly standard mystery novel, with all the usual film-noir trappings – the hard-boiled detective, the femme fatale wife, the seedy criminal overtones. As the book (and the investigation) develop, however, the detective finds himself descending deeper into existential and psychological torment, as his sense of his own identity starts to blur with that of the man he is searching for.

She seated herself on the same chair as last night, although it was now in a somewhat different position, and the line of demarcation between the bookshelves and the lemon-yellow curtains now fell to the level of her right ear, as fragile as china, ruined with rough handling. I suppose some men would feel protective toward it, while others might be carried away by the desire to break it into pieces. Which type was the husband? I wondered.
(p. 127)

The missing husband, the catalyst of the investigation, remains an ephemeral character throughout the book; never becoming much clearer than a shadow.

“He was fond of licenses. He had a kind of license mania, I guess. He even carried two driver’s licenses – one for second-class trucks. And besides that, he was a radio operator, and electric welder, and a handler of explosives…. He also had a movie projectionist’s license and a secondary teacher’s license…”
“If I could read the [husband’s] dairy, perhaps I can get some general idea of what sort of dreams your husband had.”
“Dreams?”
“For instance, did he dream of the sea, or something like that?”
“My husband is a very matter-of-fact man. When he became section head he was very happy because he had somehow stopped sliding down the slope of life.”
“But he did leave you, didn’t he.”
“It wasn’t because of his dreams. He used to say licenses were the anchor of human life.”
“Using so many anchors for such a small boat certainly puts him in the category of dreamers, doesn’t it? If he didn’t use them he’d float away.”
She slowly returned the glass, which she had raised to her lips, to the table and fell into silence as if her thoughts were someplace else.
(p. 134-137)

Like Abe’s other books, The Ruined Map is slow; fever-like and unsettling. I found myself doubling back, doubting my own understanding (perhaps Abe should be read with a clear mind, rather than over a few beers, but I certainly enjoyed prefer my way of reading!)

Abe’s books may not always be easy or comfortable reading, and will leave you with more questions than are answered. I’ve read three or four of Abe’s books so far, and none of them have had straightforward narratives, or neatly concluded endings – which I don’t consider a negative, but it can be quite unsettling if you’re expecting tidy answers. What Abe does incredibly well is unreliable narration, nightmare-ish urban landscapes, truth, the experience of time, and questions of identity – particularly the tenuous grip most of us have on our own.

The client is always right. Even if he tells a lie, for instance, if he says it’s the truth the truth it is. But the facts were no longer necessary, it was even unreasonable to demand only motives and omit the facts….I keep circling at a distance round senseless facts, trying to explain the unexplainable.
(p.138)